


I'll find the words to say

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, insecure!louis, protective!harry, slight angst, stuttering!louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:11:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Louis Harry knows is confident, outspoken and hilarious. Unfortunately, the rest of the world can't see past his stammer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll find the words to say

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a prompt on Tumblr:
> 
> Can you write an established relationship Larry where Louis has a stuttering problem and gets made fun of for it, but Harry defends him?

“Hey babe!” called out Harry as he felt the swirl of cold air against his legs that signified his boyfriend had just walked through the door, making sure he was loud enough for Louis to hear him as he slammed it shut again to keep out the bitterly cold December weather. When he heard no reply, he continued nonplussed. “How did your interview go then?”

“T-t-terrible,” he heard from behind him, and with a frown Harry stopped stirring the pasta sauce he was making and turned down the heat so that he could spin himself around and give Louis his full attention.

He recognised that tone of voice – it was the one that Louis took on when he had to repeat his order for the fifth time in a restaurant, or explain that he wasn’t being deliberately awkward to cold callers on the telephone. It was the tone that meant Louis was annoyed with himself and embarrassed at the fact that he couldn’t just talk ‘normally’.

Immediately Harry took step sideways to grab two beers from the fridge and then made his way over to the kitchen table where Louis was sat with his coat unbuttoned and his eyes looking tiredly into the distance until one of the bottles was slung in front of him and he grabbed it with a grateful smile in the younger man’s direction.

“It can’t have been that bad, can it?” asked Harry concernedly, but Louis sighed and shook his head, a look of bitter resignation crossing his face.

“They l-l-laughed in my fa-face, Haz,” he told him with a slightly whining tone for his voice that made it sound like he was about to cry. His face crumpled as he buried it in his hands, and continued his slightly muffled speech into them while Harry reached an arm over to clasp his forearm in what he hoped was a comforting manner. He couldn’t stand to see Louis this distraught!

“I c-could barely pro-pronounce my own n-name for f-fuck’s sake! And then when I exp-p-plained my condition – which took about t-t-ten minutes, m-mind you – they decid-ded that it wouldn’t be at all in-inapp-propriate to ask me a load of s-s-stupid q-q-questions about it…”

Louis' voice trailed off into silence, but it was clear from his laboured breathing that he was trying hard not to cry or shout out or hit something, which was why Harry stood up from where he was sitting, stunned that professional business owners could have been so blatantly rude to a job applicant, and moved so that he was stood behind his boyfriend and could place his hands on his shoulders. He knew that his massages always managed to calm Louis down in these sorts of situations, and as his fingers removed his coat and jacket and began to dig softly into the flesh below the formerly crisp white shirt that the older man was wearing, he could feel the audible exhale as Louis managed to release some of the tension within him.

“It’s ok,” Harry muttered comfortingly as his dextrous fingers worked at the knotted muscles. “You didn’t really want that job that much anyway, did you? And you definitely wouldn’t want to work there if your boss would be an ignorant wanker like that! You should have told him to stuff his job up his arse – no one should be allowed to treat you like that, babe!”

Feeling himself grow angry, he deliberately took a few calming breaths so as to stop himself from digging his fingernails into Louis’ skin rather than giving him a relaxing massage, which was the idea behind the gesture after all. Louis huffed out a small laugh at Harry’s indignation, then raised his head from out of his hands and turned so that he was staring straight into the deep green eyes above him. His gaze was slow and steady, but Harry could tell it was hiding a mix of hidden emotions.

“What if I n-never get a j-job, Haz?”

He was trying to sound realistic, but his voice seemed to him to come across as annoyingly plaintive, making him sound like a whining toddler, and only serving to heighten his embarrassment. Harry, on the other hand, felt his heart go out to Louis in his predicament, and did the only thing he could think of to make things better under the circumstances – leaning forwards, he pressed a kiss to the other man’s quiffed hair and whispered into his ear softly.

“Don’t worry about that, Lou, someone will employ you soon, I’m sure of it. Not everyone is as much of an arsehole as the people you saw today, you know that! And for now we’re going to forget about it completely and go get piss drunk tonight, OK?”

Huffing out a laugh, Louis turned his head once again so they were facing each other, practically nose to nose but not quite touching.

“Is alcohol your answer to every p-problem, Harold?” Grinning, Harry inched closer so that he was almost kissind Louis’ lips as he replied.

“Not _every_ problem – sex can solve a good few of them too! After all, we’re students, aren’t we?”

A genuine smile broke across Louis’ face at that as he laughed and lifted his head a little so that they were finally kissing, gently at first and then more passionately when Harry’s tongue slipped inside his boyfriend’s mouth and began to explore it as if he’d never had the opportunity to do so before. When Louis pulled away Harry frowned at the sudden loss of contact, but the older boy’s explanation quickly sobered up his love-drunk mind.

“Can you smell something burning?”

Harry’s eyes widened and he immediately leapt away to run over to where smoke was rising from the saucepan he’d left there for far too long.

“Fuck, the pasta sauce!” he yelled out, beginning to stir it as fast as he could in order to stop the bottom from burning even more, but the sound of Louis’ raucous laughter throughout the kitchen was enough to make him unable to care about the possibly ruined meal. It was a noise that he hadn’t heard in a while and it never failed to raise his spirits, especially when Louis was in such a crap mood.

Things would be OK.

***

Several hours and alcoholic beverages later, Harry was stood at the bar in some faux-expensive looking club, waiting for the barman to fetch the drinks he’d ordered for himself and Louis.

As the customers who’d been there before him got served first he felt his mind drift to the first time he’d ever met Louis. The two of them had still been back at high school then – Harry had been only 15, in fact – but when he'd turned a corner on the corridor to see Louis being threatened by three larger lads there was nothing he could do except to defend him. He was a head shorter than the other boys, what with being rather small for his age ( _‘How that has rectified itself’_ he thought with a small smile) but…

“Two gin and tonics mate?”

Shaking his head a little to clear it of his memories, Harry smiled easily and handed over his money while grabbing the drinks and walking away from the bar towards where he’d left Louis earlier. _Yes_ , he thought, beginning to reminisce again, _maybe I shouldn’t have punched those guys quite so hard, but they deserved it…_

Just as he was beginning to slip back into his memories, he realised that Louis had disappeared from his previous position, and he looked around confusedly to try and find him. Eventually he spotted Louis in a corner of the club, surrounded by 4 boys, and without even registering the situation he set over towards him with fear fluttering in his heart.

The guys around his boyfriend were young – younger than Harry, he guessed, probably too young to even be in here without fake I.D. – but Louis had always been short for his age and they appeared to tower over him as they jeered and called names that the curly haired lad couldn’t hear over the thumping music until he was right beside Louis and decided to try and break things up.

“What’s going on here then?” he asked sternly, vaguely aware that he sounded like a bouncer or a policeman but looked like neither, and the tallest of the three teenagers in front of him (a cold eyed lad with close-cropped blonde hair and a mocking sneer on his face) turned so that he was a bit too close to Harry for comfort.

“You mates with this guy?”

The question was clearly meant to be threatening, but since Harry had a few inches on the boy, it didn’t exactly have the intimidating nature he was aiming for. Nodding, Harry was tempted to slide an arm around Louis’ waist but decided that it probably wouldn’t help the circumstances much, so instead decided to take on some aggressive tactics of his own. He was far too old and mature to punch the aggressor this time around, but there was nothing to stop him from choosing a few choice words to serve up in his own defence.

“Yeah I am, do you have a problem with him, shorty?”

Looking back, it wasn’t the smartest thing he’s ever done in his life, since the other boy could easily have knocked out his front teeth right there and then if he’d had the initiative. Thankfully his opponent seemed to be a little behind most other humans on the evolutionary scale, for he simply frowned in a rather ape-like fashion before his mate took over with the thoughtful and witty repartee that his friend had done such a good job of displaying.

“Do you know he’s got a st-st-st-stammer then?”

The look Harry shot at him then was one of complete scorn and contempt, which reflected exactly how he was feeling inside.

“Well, no, actually, in the whole 3 years I’ve known him I hadn’t once noticed that he has a speech impediment, thanks for pointing that out for me or I might never have realised!” His speech was so sarcastic he thought even Louis would be proud of it, although its impact wasn’t as great as it would have been since most of it seemed to go over the younger man’s head. The way Louis was biting his lip to prevent himself from laughing, however, was enough to convince Harry that he’d said the right thing, and he decided he might as well go the whole hog now.

“And by the way,” he continued, resting a hand on Louis’ shoulder so that they were suddenly much closer together, “he’s not just my mate; he’s my boyfriend.”

When the teenagers’ mouths fell open in shock mixed with a twinge of disgust, he knew his words had had the desired effect. The homophobia was hardly desirable itself, of course, but it gave him an excuse to lean forwards and kiss Louis sloppily, the alcohol making his co-ordination a little less precise so that their lips and tongues and teeth moved messily but passionately against each other’s. As they surfaced for air, he could feel to stares of the boys upon them, and decided to shoot one last quip back to them as he and Louis began to walk away, his hand still wrapped around this boyfriend’s back.

“And I love him very much, which is more than can be said about you I expect!”

The wide-eyed stares were still burning into his back as he beamed at Louis, who finally allowed himself to laugh.

***

Once the two of them had reached the opposite side of the club, Harry wanted nothing more than to attach his lips to his boyfriend’s once again, but Louis was staring at him with a look in his eyes that he recognised as pride and adoration and complete and utter love.

“I can’t believe you did that for me,” muttered Louis into Harry’s ear, pressing a kiss to the curls there and burying his head into the younger man’s shoulder.

“Of course I did!” replied Harry, smiling at how cute Louis was acting. “I won’t let anyone treat you like that – you don’t deserve it, and it’s not fair.”

The smile Louis pressed against his neck was enough to encourage him to continue, despite knowing just how soppy he sounded.

“Plus, I meant it, you know – I love you. You’d think I’d have told you it enough times for you to know it now, but I do love you and no idiotic wanker who thinks they can take the piss out of you for a medical condition is going to have to deal with me too.”

Pulling away only to kiss him quickly and softly, Louis let out a laugh and pressed their foreheads together as though they were the only people in the room.

“Oh what w-w-would I do without you, my tes-testosterone-f-fuelled caveman of a b-b-boyfriend?”

The kitten-like giggle that Harry let out at that was enough to make Louis fully burst out laughing as he crashed their lips together once more and they both forgot about everything but the warm heat against their mouths and their hands wrapped in each other’s hair and the beating of their hearts through their t-shirts as their chests pressed close together.

“Want to h-head home?” Louis gasped when they surfaced a little too late to suck oxygen into their lungs, and Harry nodded frantically.

“Sure, I’ll get our coats.”

As he walked away, Louis felt a genuine smile stretch across his face when he called over to Harry who couldn’t hear him but he didn’t care.

“I love you!”

And God knows he meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> Lots and lots of lovely fluff! :D I love insecure!louis, so this stuttering fic was great to write and personally I think it's quite adorable :)


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